


i'll keep you a daydream away

by softirwin



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), All Time Low
Genre: M/M, angsty alex oh god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 10:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1741985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softirwin/pseuds/softirwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We were young,” Alex begins. “Fourteen, maybe fifteen. We were young, and we were horny.”</p><p>(or the one where alex really, really misses jack and fucked up pretty fucking bad)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll keep you a daydream away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> this is all phoebe's fault i swear i texted her like one thing and then it all spiralled out of control

It’s always been Luke’s dream to write with Alex Gaskarth, so it’s kind of surreal when it’s actually happening. He’d envisioned it completely differently to how it’s happening, though; he’d thought of huge studios, flashy guitars, hundreds of buttons and knobs and dials, soundproofed rooms, but they’re actually sitting in the back lounge of the bus at three a.m. with their oldest, shittiest acoustics.

It’s nicer this way, though. It’s- it feels comfortable, like home, because they’re both tired but jetlagged and they’re playing the guitars they grew up playing and it’s three a.m. and feels so intimate. Luke’s kind of in love with the early morning.

“Wait,” Alex says, frowning at Luke, who’s playing a D. “Play me that G again.” Luke obeys, and Alex’s fingers fly across the fretboard, finding notes that fit with the chord and grimacing when he hits ones that don’t.

“You saying we should go from a C sharp to a G?” Luke says incredulously. “With the melody line we’ve got? That’s going to be impossible to sing live.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be singing it live,” Alex mutters, scribbling a few more lines of tab on the paper. “You can, though.”

Luke doesn’t really want to. It’s not the best song ever; of course it’s not, it’s three a.m. and neither of them have slept for at least twenty hours, but it’s  _their_ song. Nobody else even knows they’re writing it.

“No,” Luke says. “I’ll- no.”

“Alright,” Alex shrugs, frowning as he scribbles out a note and pencils it in properly. “Fuck, dammit, was I playing fourth or fifth fret there? Was it a hammer-on?”

“Alex,” Luke says, “it’s three a.m. D’you think  _I_  can remember that?”

“True,” Alex says, smirking at the paper. “You can barely remember your own songs.”

“Hey,” Luke whines, kicking at Alex’s shin. Alex dodges it, and Luke hates him. “At least I can play  _your_  songs. That’s worth something, right?”

“Well, we can’t, so you’re a step ahead of us,” Alex shrugs. “Maybe you can replace Jack.”

“I don’t think Michael could think of anything better,” Luke tells him seriously. “I think he has wet dreams about me leaving the band and Jack replacing me.” Alex snorts.

“Wait until he hears Jack sing,” Alex mutters. Luke hums, not really wanting to add anything to that, and they lapse into comfortable near-silence, the sound of Alex’s pencil on the paper the only sound in the room.

“I sometimes wish I’d been in All Time Low,” Luke says suddenly, apropos of nothing, and Alex stops writing and looks up.

“With us?” he asks. Luke nods. “Why?”

“You just-“ he cuts himself off and shrugs, because he doesn’t really know how to word  _you just looked like you were having so much fun and I wanted a friendship like yours and Jack’s and I wanted to play onstage to thousands of people and I wanted it to be a fun experience for me as well as them and I wanted to be you and I wanted everything you had_. “Defined what I thought a band should be, I guess.” Alex takes a moment to respond to that but then he smiles, soft and gentle.

“That’s an honour,” he says. “Coming from you.” Luke thinks he might die. Maybe he already  _is_ dead; Heaven’s going to have to be like, shots off Alex’s naked stomach in order to beat this moment.

(He’s already done shots off Alex’s naked stomach.)

“You guys made us,” Luke says, waving his hands vaguely at the door outside which his band is sleeping. “You were who we wanted to be.”

“I never thought we’d be that band,” Alex admits, putting the pencil down and placing his fingers back on the fretboard. “Like, Green Day and Blink and stuff. I never thought we’d inspire anyone. We were just there to have a good time and make halfway decent music.”

“You are that band,” Luke says quietly. “You’re that guy.” Alex grins.

“Are you saying to aspired to be me because of my talent with the ladies?” he asks.

“No!” Luke protests. “I’m not even  _legal_ in America!”

“So what?” Alex says mischievously. “Hasn’t stopped you and Ashton before.” Luke groans, burying his face in his hands as he feels a blush dusting his cheeks.

“Please tell me you didn’t hear that,” he says, muffled by his hands.

“ _Daddy!_ ” Alex whimpers, a poor imitation of Luke’s moan, but he starts laughing before the word is even up. “C’mon, Lukey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. At least you’re getting laid; I haven’t seen Calum anywhere  _near_  a vagina since I’ve known him.”

“I think he’s trying to get laid by like, at least three-quarters of your band,” Luke tells him.

“That sounds more like Michael,” Alex says.

“Nah,” Luke says. “He’s just after Jack.” Alex huffs out a laugh, and the melody he’s been playing changes. It’s just been broken chords, arpeggios, scalic runs that Luke’s not really been listening to, but as the two of them lapse into silence again it switches to what Luke recognises as A Daydream Away. It’s nice, just listening to Alex play it, watch the look on his face and in his eyes as the melody flows beneath his fingers. Luke can’t remember a time that they’ve played it live.

He picks up the sheet Alex has been writing on and scans it, squinting to try and read Alex’s atrocious handwriting. He’s going to fuck up this tab so badly; he can’t even tell the difference between a three and a one, the way Alex has written them. Jesus Christ – does that line say ‘ _giving myself the chance to miss you / was the biggest mistake I made’_ or ‘ _yjvjny wyzelf the choncc to wiss yuu / wos thc biyyest niztokc I modc’_? And is that a G, or an F sharp diminished seventh?

“I really loved Jack, y’know,” Alex says suddenly, and Luke’s snapped from the world of Alex’s shitty handwriting back to reality. Alex has stopped playing. “Love. I don’t know.”

“Jack?” Luke asks. Alex sighs, raking a hand through his hair but not making eye contact with Luke.

“I was shitty,” he admits. “I was scared, and I fucked up. And now I can’t have him.” Luke doesn’t say anything, because it sounds like Alex is just gathering his thoughts, finding some path to tread to allow him to continue.

“We were young,” Alex begins. “Fourteen, maybe fifteen. We were young, and we were horny.”

 _Oblivious, I was young and horny_. Luke can’t help the words popping into his mind.

“So, like, what do two horny fifteen year old boys do? Rub off on each other. Handjobs. Blowjobs. Sex, even. Sex.” His voice cracks on the last word. “And it was- it was good, I never denied that. It was good, and we both liked it. We both stayed single until we were about to graduate, when Jack asked me to prom. And I freaked out, because I’d spent the whole time thinking it was just for fun and orgasms and there he was, with the most- the most fucking  _earnest_  expression on his face, honest and open and asking me to prom- and fuck, I said no. I told the person I’d been sleeping with for the past two or three years that I didn’t want to go to prom with them. I told him that I never wanted to be with him.” He pauses for a second, swallowing hard. “I told him that I never loved him.”

Alex’s random thoughts are starting to make sense, now. It’s Jack; of course it’s Jack, Luke should have known. It’s always Jack, with Alex.

(And Michael. But that’s beside the point.)

“He didn’t talk to me all summer. He didn’t talk to anybody, even Rian and Zack. I thought the band was going to fall apart and I was- fuck, I was so scared, and it was just so, so fucking selfish. I was scared because I didn’t want to lose Jack and be alone again, and I was scared because I had no other career plans, and I was scared because I knew how he felt.” Alex sighs, looking at his guitar.

“I wrote so many songs during that summer,” he says. “I wrote most of Walls then. But none of them seemed right, because I’d go to band practice and Jack’s spot would be empty and the song would sound unfinished and Zack and Rian would just look at me with this stupid half-pity, half-anger. They knew Jack’s withdrawal was something to do with me, but he didn’t tell them what. And neither did I.”

“Why not?” Luke asks. “Why didn’t he tell, I mean.” Alex shrugs.

“He knew I didn’t want them to know,” he says quietly, and even  _Luke_  feels that blow. To hurt someone so much that they spend the best summer of their life cooped up in their bedroom and refuse to talk to even their best friends, yet have them not telling anyone what you’ve done because they know you don’t want others to know – that’s got to hit home and hit hard. There’s only one person Luke would do that for, and that’s Ashton.

And that’s because he’s in love with Ashton.

“So at the end of the summer, when we were meant to be going into the studio but we had no songs and no practice, Rian and Zack cornered me and pretty much manhandled me to Jack’s house. Rian rang the doorbell and waited for Jack to come down, because he knew Jack wouldn’t have answered if he’d seen me ring it, but he pushed me in as soon as Jack opened the door and slammed it shut, and Zack yelled at us not to come out until we’d sorted out our differences or he’d skate over both our faces.” He smiles, the ghost of a memory in his eyes. “We talked about a lot that night. We talked about what had happened with us, our past, our present, our future. We talked about how we felt towards each other, and I told him I was one hundred percent straight. I think he called bullshit, but he didn’t say anything. He just looked kind of hurt.”

“Wouldn’t you be?” Luke says quietly. “If the person you love and know to not be straight is lying and saying they are, not because that’s the truth but because that’s what they want to believe?”

“Don’t,” Alex says weakly. “Don’t- don’t say that. Fuck, I hurt him so much.”

“Yeah,” Luke says, because there’s no way around it. “You did.” There’s a long moment of silence, and it’s heavy with Alex’s conscience. Luke doesn’t want to know what he’s thinking of.

“So, like, band starts, album recorded, tour. Cycle repeats,” Alex says after a while. “It was so hard being with Jack on the road, though, so I- I got Lisa. And Tay, but like, that was a whole different story. I got Lisa, because I knew she was going to be there and be safe and be home. She was like a _fuck you_ to Jack, like I was asserting my straightness and- God, it must have been...he had to see her  _every day_. And it was just me trying to convince  _myself_ that she was what I wanted, like kissing her in front of him was going to make me feel good. And she understood, because she’d been at high school with us and she knew, man, she  _knew_  about me and Jack. She knew I loved him. Love him. Whatever.”

“Don’t you like Lisa?” Luke asks.  _He_ likes Lisa; she’s a sweet, bubbly girl whom he can definitely see with Alex. They’re like, the perfect picket-fence romance.

But like. That’s not what it should be. That’s not how Alex loves. Alex loves hard and rough and fast and filthy with a little bit of cute and sweet in the cracks. And much as Luke can see Lisa and Alex perfectly happy together with two kids and a mortgage, it’s not where he sees Alex at his happ _iest_. That’s with Jack, and it always has been.

“Yeah,” Alex says, blowing out a breath that makes his fringe go up. “I love Lisa too. I just- I think it’s more of a platonic romance, if you know what I mean. Like, you know how people think of soulmates? I don’t think she’s my soulmate. I think she’s the kind of person I’d go for if my soulmate died. Good enough, but not the best.”

“But he’s not dead,” Luke says without thinking, and Alex flinches.

“Don’t say that,” he says. “He’s not-“ he cuts himself off.

“He is,” Luke says.

“It can’t be,” Alex says, and he sounds almost desperate now. “This is the problem. I’m not straight, alright, yeah, fine, but it can’t be a boy. I’m not- I’m not _gay_.”

“Alex,” Luke says gently. “It’s not just a  _boy_. It’s Jack. It’s your Jack.”

“I’m meant to raise a family with a nice house and a mortgage and a white picket fence and two point five kids,” Alex says. “I’m meant to be married to a pretty woman. I’m not meant to be with a boy. I don’t- I don’t want to be with a boy.”

“But do you want to be with Jack?” Luke asks. Alex sighs, staring down at his guitar.

“I wrote A Daydream Away about him,” he says. “One day, when we were home from tour, and we were just lying on the floor of my kitchen and talking about the old days. And he was grinning so much, and it  _hurt_. I was just watching him smile and it was making me smile. I wasn’t even listening to him, I was just watching, because I wanted that moment to last forever. I wanted to be with him like that forever. And then it hit me that the reason I  _can’t_  be with him like that forever is because  _I_ fucked it up. I did it. I caused him all that hurt.  _I_  fucked up.”

“‘We never stood a chance out there’?” Luke asks. Alex bites his lip.

“We didn’t,” he says softly. “We could never have been, because of me. And now we can never be, because of me.” 

"Do you want him?" Luke asks. Alex shrugs, but he’s looking away.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know if I can stand it. I hurt him too much.”

“That’s selfish,” Luke says, without thinking, and then he snaps his mouth shut immediately because this is _Alex Gaskarth_ and Luke just had the balls to call him selfish after he’d spilt his heart to Luke.

“I know,” Alex says sadly, “but I can’t put myself through that again.”

“And what about Jack?” Luke asks. “Don’t his feelings come into this?”

“He’s probably over me,” Alex says, fiddling with a strand of his hair. “He’s probably- fucking Michael, or something.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Luke says, but it’s gentle. “Anyone can see he’s still head over heels for you.”

“I wish he weren’t,” Alex says. “It would make loving him so much easier.”

“So you _do_ love him,” Luke says.

“I think I do,” Alex says. “If love feels like a constant battle for survival where I’m trying to kill the opponent and save their life at the same time.” Luke tilts his head to the side, because that’s _definitely_ not what it’s like for him and Ashton, but this is Jack and Alex they’re talking about – reckless, brave, stupid, fearless, hard-headed, fiercely passionate about everything they do. Which, apparently, includes loving.

“Yeah,” Luke says. “I think you love him.”

“I’m so fucked,” Alex says quietly. “I’m in love with him and I can’t be with him. It’s like Romeo and Juliet, but I’m Juliet and Capulet.”

“What are you so afraid of?” Luke asks softly. “It’s just Jack. The Jack you’ve known since you were like, some prepubescent teenager. The Jack you grew up with. The Jack you know. It’s just- it’s just _Jack_.”

“He doesn’t fit with my perfect future,” Alex says.

“Does spending every day feeling like this and having this many regrets fit into your ‘perfect future’?” Luke asks. Alex shrugs.

“No,” he admits after a moment, when it becomes clear Luke’s waiting for an answer.

“What did you tell Ashton when he asked you for advice on how to ask me out?” Luke asks. He knows; Ashton told him, but he just wants to remind Alex. “What did you say when he told you he was scared of falling for a boy?”

“I told him to go for it,” Alex says. “I told him that living a life of regrets isn’t living a life at all. I told him to make himself happy and stop being scared of falling for a boy, because all that fear is is fear of the unknown.”

“You told him what you should have told yourself back when you were eighteen,” Luke rephrases.

“I don’t know,” Alex says, pushing a hand through his hair again. “What am I even meant to do? What would I tell Lisa? It’s too complicated now.”

“Are you giving up on him?” Luke asks. Alex shakes his head, opens his mouth and closes it again like it’s all hitting him at once. Lisa, high school, Tay, the band, the tours, the early days, Walls, A Daydream Away-

“I’m trying to make him give up on me,” he whispers.

 


End file.
